Two years after nightclub shooting, a comic book still brings comfort and healing

Courtesy photo

"Love Is Love" is a graphic novel released in December of 2016 by San Diego's IDW Publishing. Two years later, it is still making an impact by raising money for LGBTQ-related causes and charities. This Batwoman illustration was by Rafael Albuquerque.

"Love Is Love" is a graphic novel released in December of 2016 by San Diego's IDW Publishing. Two years later, it is still making an impact by raising money for LGBTQ-related causes and charities. This Batwoman illustration was by Rafael Albuquerque. (Courtesy photo)

Two years after its release, a comic book anthology published in reaction to the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando is still selling copies, still raising money for LGBT organizations, and still living up to the open-hearted promise of its title.

It was a product of grief, outrage and helplessness, but like the superheroes featured in many of its panels, “Love Is Love” — released in December of 2016 by San Diego’s IDW Publishing — is dedicated to making the world a better, more understanding place. For everybody.

“We all know what pain feels like and we all know what love feels like, and I wanted to show the universality of this loss,” said comic-book writer and screenwriter Marc Andreyko, who organized and curated the anthology. “We are all the same. We just want people to love us and we want to love other people in return.”

When Andreyko woke up on June 13, 2016, to hear that 49 people had been killed during the shooting in the gay nightclub, the news hit him like a gut-punch. With memories of coming of age during the AIDS crisis and the many losses that followed, Andreyko felt the need to do something.

So he went on Facebook and said, “Let’s do a comic book.” By the time the day was over, he had 70 emails from friends in the comic-book industry, friends from Hollywood and strangers from the creative community, all of whom just wanted to contribute in any way they could.

The anthology topped the New York Times bestseller list for graphic books. By March of 2017, it had raised $165,000 for the OneOrlando Fund supporting the Pulse victims and their families.

Each year, all proceeds from “Love Is Love” will be donated to a designated LGBT charity. Earlier this month, IDW made the 2018 donation of $51,000 to the Trevor Project, which provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning young people.

“This has so exceeded any of my wildest hopes for the amount of money it could raise and the attention it got,” Andreyko said. “We were able to give $51,000 to the Trevor Project two years out, when the news cycle is so fast people don’t remember what happened five minutes ago. I’m happy and sad that there is an evergreen quality to this.”

Most of the pieces in “Love Is Love” run just one or two pages. But together, these artistic snapshots paint a layered picture of all the ways humans can survive and grow in the shadow of a towering tragedy.

There are warm stories remembering favorite gay friends and relatives. There are confessional coming-out stories that are heart-wrenching, life-affirming or a combination of both. There are comics taking on guns and homophobia and comics celebrating disco and Gay Pride parades. There are stories of courage and fury and the grief of the families, partners and pets who were left behind.

And there are comic-book heroes. Superman and Batwoman wave rainbow flags. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy exchange flowers and love notes. Kevin Keller and his “Archie" pals organize a fundraiser for the Pulse victims’ families. A tired Batman vows to face down the haters and “Fight for my love.”

It was born out of shock and the need to make sense of the unspeakable. Now that it’s out there, “Love Is Love” means more things to more people than Andreyko thought was possible.

“I think we all needed a catharsis to deal with the grief we felt for these people who were just in the club living their lives when this happened,” Andreyko said. “Because we did it so fast, the book brings you through all sorts of emotional experiences. There are very sad stories, very hopeful stories and very defiant stories.”

A few words of warning. This book will make you cry. It will also remind you what a privilege it is to have people in your life who are worth crying over.